The Danger of a Single Story

Project Reflection:

For this assignment we had to write a short story about a subject of our choice with the only requirements being our story had to at least partly take place within Africa, specifically south of the Equator. We also had to create a book cover that accurately represents our story without involving stereotypes about Africa, such as open plains and large red sunsets. Leading up to this project we read a book about a tribe in central Africa, called Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I attempted to have an interview with somebody from Somalia to further my knowledge, but I was not able to locate anybody and it did not work out.

From this project, I was able to learn that when the average American hears Africa, all they think about is impoverished children living in very primitive societies. The danger of a single story is that it will only display one example of an event and will then be passed down through the generations so only that single story will be seen as factual. People seeing Africa as just a malnourished and ravaged area are the ones who have only been taught the “single story.” As we were taught about what is the “true” Africa, almost none of our classes stories were based off of a stereotypical Africa and all of them seemed historically accurate. Some lasting legacies from imperialism that I observed throughout our reading and my personal research is how people now assume that African countries are not fit to control themselves, after being controlled by other countries for so long. I watched a documentary where a professional hockey player went to Africa and gave all of the villages he found gifts of sports equipment. He received a lot of criticism from westerners for delivering these gilts instead of “useful” gifts such as food aid. After he delivered all of his sports equipment, he was invited to speak to a man of power in the region he was delivering the equipment to and the man was in tears when discussing how for once people had finally given his people something for entertainment and something that normal people might have, instead of only been given food aid. The ingredients for a strong story are first, showing people the background descriptively so that they can visualize the scenes, showing, not telling when describing certain scenes to the reader, and lastly making sure you follow the traditional story layout of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion so that the reader can follow your story with ease.

Considering everything we learned and reviewed throughout our writing process, I definitely feel most proud of how historically accurate my story was. Originally when I thought of it, it was not very realistic to the real lives of people in Mogadishu, Somalia but I was able to get feedback on that and refined my entire story to make sure every single little detail was historically accurate which is a part of the story that I felt many people did not take as seriously. For me, the most challenging part when writing my story was characterization. I found this part difficult because I was unsure of how to describe my character other than a brief physical description and quickly going over their personalities. After reading over my story, I felt that my descriptions of my characterizations did not fit into my story at all and I was able to refine them to the best of my abilities but I still feel as though it did not flow within my story. I would say that the only possible change to my writing that I might have made would have been probably challenging myself by attempting to write in 1st person, instead of 3rd person and switching between characters in certain paragraphs which I feel would have been very interesting to read if I would pull it off correctly. “As he slowly leaned over onto the cold sheet metal he was sitting on, all he could think about was sleep and he passed out as soon as he closed his eyes.” This quote I chose shows how my description in my writing has vastly improved compared to my writing that I did in middle school and even in 9th grade.

I made the original design decisions for my cover after sitting around for hours trying to think of a way to show my story accurately while not relying on any sort of stereotype about Africa. After I was stuck, I went into my parents bedroom and looked through their bookshelf but was unable to find any good examples that I could use. After that I found a cover that was very simple, a woman standing in a field, the center of the cover. Using this as the basis, I found a picture of a Somali street and cropped everything out except for one boy that was identical to the one the was the main character of my story, cropped everything else out, and made that my book cover. My cover communicates the theme of my character young and alone in Mogadishu, by showing a teenage boy alone in a street of Mogadishu walking away from the photograph which I edited to feature higher contrast to better send the message of feeling lost and alone, like my character was throughout my story. I am most proud of how much I edited very little parts of my cover with certain layers and tones which you would not notice upon quickly glancing at it, but still really add to the fell of my entire story. Most challenging for me was actually shockingly converting my image to black and white, which on my older variant of photoshop was extremely complicated compared to the actual hard complicated editing that I have previously done in digital arts. The only thing I would change about my book cover would be making sure the text fits in with my image better, which is a point where I felt I was lacking.

I would say the most important lesson I learned from this entire project would have to be being taught about how Africa is often the victim of stereotypes, and how one man wrote the “single story” of Africa that has since controlled how most westerners think about Africa. I grew as a person throughout this project because I feel as though now whenever I hear something that sounds like it could be a stereotype, I will now question the reality that the stereotype portrays and possibly even do some research into the origin of the common “single story” that has led to that stereotype being accepted. I also feel as though I have grown in the areas of respect and perseverance, which are areas that I was formerly challenged in by learning about another culture and accepting them for who they are instead of being judgemental as well as putting more effort into my school work to make sure I can get good grades.